Files need to be saved to a folder in a file system or extracted from a folder in a file system in a number of different situations. Situations in which a file is saved to a folder include the following examples: saving a new file which has been created or saving a different version of an existing file in a “Save As” operation; saving a file received as an attachment to an email message; or saving a file downloaded from the Internet. Situations in which a file needs to be selected from a folder include selecting a file for attachment to an email.
In known systems, a browse window for selecting a folder is opened when a “Save As” operation is initiated, for example in a word processor editor application. The folders shown in the browse window may be the last folder a file was saved to, a default folder such as “My Documents”, or in some cases a folder for temporary files.
In a related problem, many current email systems make it hard for users to keep the mail attachments they receive within the email messages themselves, either because it increases the mail files or database size and thus makes it harder to manage, or because there is a limit on the total size. Therefore, users tend to extract (save and delete or just save operation) mail attachments and save them in the file system.
When extracting such attachments, the system usually remembers the last folder in which the last attachment was saved, which serves as the default folder for the next “save and delete” operation. Many times this is not the right folder the user really wants to use.
In a further related scenario, when writing an email message and adding an attachment to a messages, a user needs to point to the request file to be attached. A browse window is again opened suggesting a folder from which to retrieve the file to be attached. The suggested folders are often not the most relevant and other folders need to be navigated to before the correct file is located for attachment.
It is an aim of the present invention to suggest a folder to save a file to or to retrieve a file from based on an automatic analysis of past behavior.